STANFORD, Calif. - Less than two months after starting at defender in the 2025 College Cup final for the Stanford women’s soccer team, sophomore Sammy Smith has achieved her lifelong goal of making an Olympic team.
Smith earned a spot as a member of the U.S. Olympic Cross Country Ski Team ahead of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games, which get underway Feb. 6.
“I could not be more excited to represent the U.S. at the Winter Olympics,” said Smith, one of at least four Stanford undergraduates who have qualified for the 2026 Winter Olympics, joining Zoe Atkin (Great Britain - freestyle skiing), Eileen Gu (China - freestyle skiing) and Brandon Kim (USA - short track speed skating). “I want to thank my family for their unwavering support, my coaches Rick Kapala, Peter Holmes, and Braden Becker, my team SVSEF Gold Team, and of course the U.S. Ski Team for giving me this incredible opportunity and helping make a lifelong dream a reality.”
Stanford has long been regarded as the preeminent training ground for national team competition. In Summer Olympics competition, affiliates have captured 335 overall medals from 196 medalists, including a school-record 39 medals at the 2024 Paris Games, representing the most student-athlete medals won in an Olympics by any school. For the third consecutive edition of the Summer Games, Stanford also totaled the most Team USA selections (37) and Team USA medals (36).
However, this one just feels a bit different. Smith’s selection to the national team is extremely rare, if not, unprecedented: a current varsity student-athlete competing for the national team of a different sport within the same academic calendar year. A native of Boise, Idaho, Smith is believed to be Stanford’s first American varsity student-athlete to also participate in a Winter Olympics since Bonny Warner, a member of the Cardinal’s field hockey team from 1982-84 who competed for Team USA’s luge squad in 1984, 1988 and 1992. Stanford’s most recent Team USA Winter Olympian was Rachael Flatt, a figure skater who competed in the 2010 Games and graduated in 2015.
“We are so excited for Sammy,” said Paul Ratcliffe, Stanford’s Knowles Family Director of Women’s Soccer said. “Balancing being a high-level Division I soccer player, a Stanford education and Olympic dreams is an incredible feat. She is a tremendous worker and has great competitive drive on the soccer field, and I’m sure she will showcase that determination as a member of the Olympic team. Everyone here at Stanford will be watching and cheering her on!”
Following a sophomore campaign in which she appeared in every match for the Cardinal, including starting 14 at defender, Smith quickly shifted her attention to the slopes and traveled to Lake Placid, New York, for the U.S. Cross Country Championships from Jan. 4-9. Just 27 days removed from the national title match, Smith won both the skate sprint and classic sprint to make her case for inclusion on the Olympic team.
Needing another strong performance to solidify her standing, Smith traveled to the 2026 FIS Cross Country Skiing World Cup in Oberhof, Germany, from Jan. 17-18. In a potential preview of Olympic competition next month, Smith sprinted to a career-best 12th-place finish and was the top American in the field.
All that was left to do was await the announcement of the 97-member U.S. Ski & Snowboard Olympic Team. That announcement came early on the morning of Jan. 22 as Team USA nominated its athletes for the Olympic Games.
The Milano Cortina Games will take place across Italy, becoming the most geographically widespread Games in history. Athletes will compete across 25 venues in four main clusters: Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme, with 116 medal events on the schedule. For ski and snowboard events, Bormio will host men’s alpine, Cortina will host women’s alpine, cross country, ski jumping and nordic combined will all take place in Val di Fiemme and freestyle, freeski and snowboard will be in Livigno.
At the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, U.S. Ski & Snowboard accounted for more than 40 percent of Team USA's delegation and brought home 15 of the 25 total Olympic medals won. Of the 97 U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes represented, 48 are first-time Olympians.
The full Olympic schedule can be found HERE. How to watch the Games via NBC-owned channels in the United States can be found HERE.